Woman acquitted of killing friend after judge rules stabbing was accidentalBack to video

Afterward, Loos hugged friends and family as she made her way out of the courtroom.

Loos’ trial began two weeks ago, nearly two years after Kay’s death at Royal Alexandra Hospital hospital following an altercation at Loos’ north Edmonton home.

Court heard Kay died of a stab wound to her torso during the early morning hours of March 31, 2017. Police arrived at the home at 12807 124 St. at 3:18 a.m. Kay was rushed to hospital but died within the hour.

While Loos held the knife, Michalyshyn sided with the defence, ruling what happened was a “most unfortunate accident.”

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Loos and Kay, who court heard were friends, were drinking and smoking pot at Loos’ rental home on the night of the altercation.

Others in the home at the time testified the two were very intoxicated, putting them both at an eight or nine out of 10 in terms of drunkenness.

At some point, the two got in a disagreement. Court heard from a witness that Kay was “out of control” and would not leave the home or quiet down. Loos told court she was concerned about her children, who were in the home at the time.

Loos said she went into the kitchen and started to clean up in order to avoid the conflict. It was there she found the knife on the floor. Court heard she was angry, wondering why the knife was on the floor given there were young children there.

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Loos said she then turned around and saw Kay coming toward her, looking angry with her arms outstretched as if to push or choke her. As they collided, the knife went into Kay.

A woman resting on a couch in another room described Kay stumbling into the kitchen with outstretched arms, and then stagger back clutching her torso. However, she could not see what happened in the kitchen, and did not hear anything.

After the altercation, Loos told a man who was in the house that she had “stabbed” or “stuck” Kay with the knife. However, Michalyshyn did not treat this as a confession of an “intentional act” owing to the “heat of the moment” and her level of intoxication.

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Sara Kay, who died after being stabbed during an altercation at a friend’s home in north Edmonton on March 31, 2017. /Edmonton

A doctor who conducted the autopsy found the wound that killed Kay would only take a small to moderate amount of force, and that it was not possible to tell whether the knife was used “actively” to inflict a stab wound, or whether Loos had simply held it “passively” and Kay ran into the blade.

Loos was also acquitted of a weapons possession charge related to the knife

‘This was not Sara’

Darrell Thompson, Kay’s uncle, spent two weeks attending the trial.

He wanted the public to know that his niece’s final moments aren’t the sum total of who she was.

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“This was not Sara, what happened here,” he said of how her final moments were portrayed in court.

Kay was from the Key First Nation in Saskatchewan and was attending NorQuest College with dreams of working in the health-care field. She went by both Sara Kay and Sara Crane — Thompson’s mother’s maiden name.

Kay was the practical joker of the family, and her energy filled up any room she entered, Thompson said.

He recalled one summer morning when Kay filled his hand with shaving cream and tickled his nose while he slept on the couch — a prank which had the intended effect.

Thompson said he was sad and angry about the death, but said he had prepared by speaking to Indigenous elders, praying with his girlfriend and smudging. His son, who was close with Kay, has taken her death particularly hard, he added.

“You just have to go on,” he said. “She’s in our hearts. She has to be.”

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